Mala’s face twisted into a mask of apprehension. “Oh, Elyn, do you forget? The bards say that no Dragon will ever be slain by the hand of Man.”
Elyn raised her hand up before her own eyes, slowly rotating it front to back, studying palm, knuckles, thumb, and fingers. “Mala, this be not the hand of a Man.”
Tears ran down Mala’s face. “But you may be hurt, Princess, even slain.”
Elyn knelt down and embraced her aunt, comforting her. “If I do not go, dear Mala, the Realm itself may fall,” whispered Elyn.
As she rode back to Jordkeep, back to the broken castle, for some reason the lines of one of Trent the Bard’s songs echoed and re-echoed through her mind:
Would you fight to the death
For that which you love,
In a cause surely hopeless. .
For that which you love?
And Elyn removed the hood and jesses from Redwing, and cast the bird into the air. “Fly free, my red hunter, fly free.” And russet hawk soared upward into the bright blue sky.
The following day, Elyn called her Counsellors together and announced her intention to seek out Black Mountain and the Kammerling. After the uproar settled, Elyn appointed Mala Regent, decreeing that she was to hold the post until the return to the Kingdom of her sire or herself. Elyn also decreed that should aught happen to her aunt, to Aranor, or to herself, the Counsellors were to appoint a suitable Regent until Bram were to come of age, mentioning Arianne and Gannor as possible choices.
The transfer of authority was swift, and within the hour all in the keep knew of it, and dispatch riders were sent galloping to outlying posts with the remarkable news.
Next morning, as dawn broke upon the Land, Elyn slipt out from the ruins of the castle and bore eastward upon her swift steed, Wind.
She rode all that day and the next and the two following. And late afternoon of the fourth day found her wending upward into Kaagor Pass, Wind’s steel-shod hooves clattering upon the stone, sending echoes chattering along the length of the sheer slot and into the crags high above. Up the granite col she pressed, and dusk found her midway through the gap. Yet it was summer, and night at these heights at this time of year was bearable, and so she made camp as darkness fell.
After tending to Wind’s needs, Elyn managed to find a scrub pine, dead, its limbs twisted by the mountain winds, and soon a small cook fire blazed. She heated some water for tea, dropping in one of the precious leaves. As it steeped, she stared into the flames, and her mind ranged back to the early morn, back to the burnt waggon train with its slain warriors. Ardu had been right: it clearly had been a hospital train bearing wounded Harlingar. And later, she had come across the charred bodies of the cattle drovers. Of the herd, there was no sign: Likely scattered, she mused. Left alive by Black Kalgalath so that he can feed upon them. And as she sat beside her small campblaze, her mind turned ever and again to the sight of the burnt victims-the wounded, the attendants, the drovers: all slain-Dragon-slain, destroyed by the searing breath of a monster. Adon, what a hideous way to die.
And as Elyn sipped her tea, a fire smoldered deep within her green eyes.
The dawn light seeping into the pass found Elyn breaking camp. From the east a chill drift of air slid down from the mountain peaks, and the Warrior Maiden donned her fleece vest as proof against the raw flow. As she affixed her bedroll to the saddle cantle, Wind snorted and shied aside. “Steady, girl,” murmured Elyn, casting about but seeing nought that could have caused such skittish behavior in the mare.
Mounting up, easterly she rode into the cold breeze, and a dull overcast palled the skies. Again Wind skitted, dancing aside, snorting, tossing her head. “What is it, girl?” No sooner had Elyn uttered the words than in the distance she saw a dark shape winging westerly across the leaden sky: Black Kalgalath!
Her heart hammering, Elyn reined the mare into the lee of a large boulder, seeking concealment. As she did so, at hand in the wall of the pass she spied a dark opening and urged Wind forward. But the horse refused to enter. Swiftly dismounting, the Princess haled on the reins and pulled the reluctant mare into the entrance, stepping into the deep shadows of the cave.
Inside, a foetid stench drifted unto her nostrils, yet it was faint, as if from years past. No wonder Wind did not want to enter. This smells rank, as if it were a-shock registered upon Elyn’s mind-a Troll hole. Golga’s hole! Quickly stepping to the grey, the Warrior Maiden drew her saber, her eyes seeking to penetrate the ebon blackness deep within the cave, the hair prickling upon her arms and the nape of her neck. Wait, you silly goose. Golga was slain by Elgo but three years past. And surely no Troll has since taken up residence. Yet even after these years, there still is a sickening stench. . How could Elgo have ever searched this hole in the first place? It must have been unbearable then. Her brother’s face rose up in her consciousness, yet she refused to let sorrow interfere with her alertness as she kept her eyes locked upon the darkness at the back of the cave. Hammer and anviclass="underline" a Dragon without, and who knows what within, mayhap nought.
An hour or so she waited, all the time watchful, yet nothing came upon her and Wind from the interior of the cave. And she allowed enough time to elapse for Kalgalath to fly league upon league onward, for although she did not know what goal the Drake pursued, she did know that now was not the time to confront the monster. And so she waited as time seeped away, watching the blackness at the back of the Troll hole. And when she deemed that she had waited long enough, out into Kaagor Pass she led Wind, the horse eager to be free of the stench, and they came forth into a thin drizzle raining coldly from the lowering skies.
Of Black Kalgalath, there was no sign.
It rained all that day as Elyn first rode westerly and verified that the gates of Kachar were indeed buried-beyond redemption, it seemed, for it appeared as if a massive slide had tumbled down from above, and the gates were pressed beneath unnumbered tons of rock.
As she rode up to the heap, she began to see the remains of the slain-felled Harlingar, burnt, charred, rent by Drake talon. Yet lo! Some of the slaughtered were Dwarves. Ardu had said nought of Dwarves falling to the Dragon. Elyn sat a moment in speculation, seeking to resolve the mystery before her. Yet nought came to mind, and she found that her eyes sought to look everywhere but at the horrid evidence before her.
Realizing that she could accomplish nothing here, the Warrior Maiden turned easterly and rode back through the charred forest, it too destroyed by Dragonfire, and nightfall found her some seven leagues from the valley of Kachar, on the way toward the distant Land of Xian.
As rain fell from the black sky above, she made a fireless camp in the lee of a sandstone butte. Huddling within her oiled-leather rain-cloak, her back to the gritty rock, at last the emotions of the day caught up to Elyn; and she quietly wept for the Dragon-slain, and for her lost brother, too, as well as for the unknown fate of her sire.
The next morning dawned to clear skies and Elyn rode into the sunrise. And as she fared to the east, once again she was startled to see the ebon shape of a Drake winging west; once more she took shelter, this time within a nearby thicket of trees, as the Dragon hammered past her, a mile or so to the north.
In less than an hour, she saw Black Kalgalath once more, this time his leathery pinions driving him dawnward, back along the path whence he came.